10 Toughest Tables: Austin

Every month The Daily Meal will reveal how difficult it is to reserve a primetime table at a city's most booked restaurants. This month's Toughest Tables hones in on Austin.

We teamed up with Opentable.com's Chief Dining Officer, Caroline Potter, to find out which restaurants customers have established as the most-booked. The ten places below were determined by votes from more than 41,600 diners.

To help you score a much-coveted tables, we cross-examined each restaurant to determine how tough it really is to get seated.

 

Austin's Most Booked Restaurants

Uchiko — 4200 N Lamar Blvd. Suite 140 — (512) 916-4808
Location: Downtown
Cuisine: Asian
Can You Eat Dinner at the Bar? "Yes, at the bartop itself you can have the full menu."
Will You Seat an Incomplete Party? Yes
Do You Accept Walk-ins? Yes
What Time Can You Almost Always Get a Reservation? "Almost always at 5pm. Other than that we're pretty much all booked up all through the rest of the night."

 

La Condesa — 400 W 2nd St — (512) 499-0300
Location: Downtown
Cuisine: Mexican
Can You Eat Dinner at the Bar? "Yes. It's full-service, and the bar is first-come, first- serve."
Will You Seat an Incomplete Party? "It depends on the size of the party. If it's five or more we will not, but if it is two to four we will."
Do You Accept Walk-ins? "We do. Our patio and bar are reserved for walk-ins. But we do highly recommend reservations."
What Time Can You Almost Always Get a Reservation? "We can almost always accommodate reservations for parties under five. It's large parties that we have a problem seating at the last minute Thursday through Saturday. Sunday through Thursday we can almost always seat parties under eight people at any time."

 

Eddie V's — 4200 N Lamar Blvd. Suite 140 — (512) 472-1860
Location: Downtown
Cuisine: Seafood/Steak
Can You Eat Dinner at the Bar? Yes
Will You Seat an Incomplete Party? Yes
Do You Accept Walk-ins? Yes
What Time Can You Almost Always Get a Reservation? "A time you can always get a reservation is at 5:30pm and 9pm. Give or take every day. But when the UT home game is on at 2pm it's going to be busy all game long."

 

Perry's Steakhouse & Grille — 114 W. 7th St. Suite 110 — (512) 474-6300
Location: Downtown
Cuisine: Steakhouse/Seafood
Can You Eat Dinner at the Bar? "Yes you can. It's open seating at the bar and live music every night."
Will You Seat an Incomplete Party? "Yes we will."
Do You Accept Walk-ins? "Yes we do."
What Time Can You Almost Always Get a Reservation? "We try to be able to accommodate for everything. We have a large restaurant, so we can accommodate any size party at any time. It's about 17,000 square feet so limited seating is not a problem we have to deal with. We have parties of 14 walk in at seven in the evening and we'll find room. It's all about the guest."

 

Uchi — 801 S Lamar Blvd — (512) 916-4808
Location: Downtown
Cuisine: Japanese
Can You Eat Dinner at the Bar? No.
Will You Seat an Incomplete Party? No.
Do You Accept Walk-ins? "Yes, it's primarily on a walk-in basis."
What Time Can You Almost Always Get a Reservation? "That is rare. Probably the 5pm's are available, but again on a walk-in basis, and even the 5pm's tend to book up."

 

Maggiano's — 10910 Domain Drive Suite 100 — (512) 501-7870
Location: Downtown
Cuisine: Italian/American
Can You Eat Dinner at the Bar? "You can."
Will You Seat an Incomplete Party? "Yes, sir."
Do You Accept Walk-ins? "We do."
What Time Can You Almost Always Get a Reservation? "Let's see, it's kind of... you can get a reservation for four or less at any time, but for bigger parties it's necessary to make a reservation up to two weeks in advance. It's pretty much any time of day that you can make a reservation for nine to ten, and we can take you in at any time."

 

Perla's Seafood and Oyster Bar — 1400 S Congress Suite B100 — (512) 291-7300
Location: Downtown
Cuisine: Seafood/Continental
Can You Eat Dinner at the Bar? Yes.
Will You Seat an Incomplete Party? Yes.
Do You Accept Walk-ins? Yes.
What Time Can You Almost Always Get a Reservation? "5:30pm and after nine."

 

Steiner Ranch Steakhouse — 5424 Steiner Ranch Blvd — (512) 381-0800
Location: Northwest
Cuisine: Steak/Seafood
Can You Eat Dinner at the Bar? Yes.
Will You Seat an Incomplete Party? Yes
Do You Accept Walk-ins? Yes.
What Time Can You Almost Always Get a Reservation? "You can get in whenever, but we will put you on a waitlist. Before 6pm or after 8pm. I mean, that's usually when people call us for reservations so that's the time that is the busiest for us."

 

Trattoria Lisina — 13308 FM 150 West Driftwood — (512) 894-3111
Location: Driftwood
Cuisine: Italian
Can You Eat Dinner at the Bar? "We do have a full-service bar, yessir."
Will You Seat an Incomplete Party? "We prefer not to."
Do You Accept Walk-ins? "Yessir, we try to hold about 20% of the restaurant for walk-ins."
What Time Can You Almost Always Get a Reservation? "Usually, definitely 9pm or 9:30pm, we are usually open. And then earlier, usually 4pm or 4:30pm."

 

Eddie V's — 9400 Arboretum Blvd — (512) 342-2642
Location: Downtown
Cuisine: Seafood/Steak
Can You Eat Dinner at the Bar? "Yes, most definitely it is full-service dining."
Will You Seat an Incomplete Party? "Always, definitely."
Do You Accept Walk-ins? "Yes we do."
What Time Can You Almost Always Get a Reservation? "We have a banquet room which we usually have closed, so if we get a lot of walk-ins we'll open it up for them. So whatever time you come in it's likely you'll be able to get seated."